Monte Carlo

Just a quick one. Some authors can be serious and whimsical simultaneously, writing epic prose that can also make you laugh out loud. OK, it's a very flawed novel (all the best ones are), but Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres is a good example. First time I read the bit about the sappers and the land mine I spat coffee all over a tube carriage laughing out loud. Maybe Louis needs to write a fantasy novel. Cheers MC

I'm not a big fan of fantasy novels either. The problem, as I see it, is that there is marked tendency towards portentousness. They play it too straight. I tried one of those big Robert Jordan books on a plane once, and it was a much better way of getting to sleep than the pills the doctor gave me. Interestingly, in a movie, this can work. LotR only works as a movie when played on a completely straight bat, if they'd tried to be humorous of campy it would have crashed and burned. Anyhoo, Dave G (who I actually really rate in his day job) falls straight into this trap. Why is Terry Pratchett one of the most popular fantasy writers? OK, apparently he's a good storyteller (As I said, I don't read much fantasy) but also he's funny and makes people feel comfortable with the genre. My favourite fantasy, BTW, is 1970's acid trip 'Science Fantasy' a la Moorc0ck (language filter!), with guys with flame lances riding giant flamingos (honestly, man, I like saw that for real!). For me, Ian Fleming is a better fantasy author than Tolkien. Thing is, given the medieval and / or ancient culture influences of a lot of fantasy, why is it so serious? Chaucer is full of jokes. Cheers MC

I have a pristine copy, in 1990's shoe-box size packaging, only played once. Any offers? My astigmatism is worse now than it was in 1999, in no small part down to having to read all that tiny text. Cheers MC

Dave Gaider wrote:

Was reading in the business pages that video games and delivery pizza are the economic phoenixes rising from the ashes of the Credit Crunch. OK, there will be restructuring (and by getting into bed with Microsoft should know exactly what you're letting yourself in for in that respect) which will very sadly result in job losses. But, in the whole, the industry is better positioned to ride out the current crisis than many others. It's like an epidemic - when others are dying you should consider yourself lucky that you've only got a headache. Volourn is right to be steely-eyed about it - a few in the creative industries have a tendency to see themselves as a breed apart from civilians..."but we're creatives..." Er, no.

Dave's writing fanfic for his own game. This has to be a first!

Where did you do your MBA, North Korea?

Indeed, all though it does seem strange that you've been indulging in the argument as much as anyone else. Hey, it's 2009, remember?

NWNs graphics were, and are, hilariously bad.

:: shrugs :: I suppose it's just another trademark Biowarian straightjacket: linearity in all things. I am completely aware and relatively chilled out that some people like that, and that the mythical 'Joe Gamer' (to whom mainstream developers have built an altar that must be replenished with vanilla-flavoured design decisions every day) likes it that way. It's just that I don't, and as CG points out, it's technical design decisions like the ruleset that informs the flavour of the game as much as other considerations like NPCs etc (if not more so). FWIW, I couldn't get into Oblivion for reasons that have been oft-discussed here, but the open-class-with-templates system was on the money for me. So, I choose a class with the option of a kit or prestige class. It's too D&D flavoured for my liking, sorry. The only thing they've done is dump a cleric / healer class (as Tolkienesque as the orc-like blight monsters). As ever, am reserving final judgement until I play it, the rest of it could be so elegant that it doesn't matter. Cheers MC

Classes, eh? Or, dare I say it, kits (cue sinister balalika music)... You get to create your own ruleset for your own IP and you go and choose a class-based system? How... retro. I'm surprised alignments didn't make the cut.

They always do that, I think it's a provisional date. You have EB in the States, we have a shop called 'Game.' They hit the Magic "Release Date" Eight Ball and post it up on their website.

I have Campaign Cartographer, an older version that I used to use for P&P games. It's pretty awesome. When I look at the world map for Medieval TW2 it pretty much reminds me of what I could come up with after playing around with CC2 - in fact I wonder if the Creative Assembly actually used the same software. I don't know how you could segue it into a NWN2 mod, except I suppose send it out as a separate file to provide a nice presentation of what the game world looked like. All I will say about the older CC is that it wasn't the easiest thing to play around with straight out of the box - lots of messing around with X and Y axes etc. Cheers MC

I figured I

Why? If we accept that games are / have becoming / become a valid cultural phenomenon (which I do, gaming culture and memes are now firmly part of the cultural mainstream), not unlike books or movies, then they all build on what went before. Then the wheel turns, and what went before actually becomes fashionable again. This is why marketing people always invoke the spirit of the classics (in literature, music, art and just about everything else). A couple of years ago trendy London restaurants went mad about 1970's food. Oasis think they're The Beatles. Quentin Tarantino is making a movie that sounds like the Dirty Dozen (made in 1969). Everybody is loving Marvel comics superheroes. And so on. It is inevitable that a ridiculously old-school RPG will eventually be released at the mainstream market, polished a bit, but aimed at grognard gamers ("see what the fuss was about in 1997 d00ds!"). Look at hex-based wargames. Cottage industry, loved by a tiny but loyal minority who remember the SPI games of yesteryear. I'd be happy with a low-tech, high-content CRPG version of that developing one day, which it will. I know there's that cliche about those forgetting their past not deserving a future (yadda yadda) but there's an element of truth to it. Sometimes less is more, and games are no different. Cheers MC

Honestly, am I the only bloke who couldn't care less about extensive VO? The odd BG1-style comment is enough for me: give me content, tangible, playable, interactive content. That's far more immersive than a voice actor doing every line. And, on a more serious note, it's hugely time consuming. DA might well be 100 hours after you've sat through every bloody cutscene and piece of Fakespeare VO. I've said it before - Devs, if you want to make movies, make movies. Not games. If I want a cinematic experience I'll go to the cinema, thanks. Cheers MC

I think the word 'some', italicized for emphasis, was the clue there. I'm not expecting 100 hours from DA. OTOH, I'd like to think that there is are developers out there who would still give it a go. I'll be generous and include replayability - I've had several hundred hours out of MTW2 and probably a few months from BG2 over the years. DA is suitable for modding so who knows?

:: Shrugs :: BG1 & BG2 had sandbox elements in that you could wander around and explore within certain constraints. It gave an illusion of freedom. I liked it, so did about a hundred thousand plus other gamers, it resurrected the genre and is one of the reasons we are still talking about Bioware. Furthermore, if we are to believe (and let's give them the benefit of the doubt) the Bio hype, this is their 'spiritual successor' to Baldur's Gate (although the combat still looks a bit NWN to me) why not hope for a less restrictive critical path? And saying "nobody wants to play 100 hour games any more" might be true of some console-addicted twitch gamers, but it certainly isn't true of the sizeable numbers of grown-up gamers who like strategy and RPG titles. We actually look for replayability, content, difficulty and, yes, the length of the game. After all, I'm only buying four or five a year now and I'm getting pickier. If I'm putting down almost UK

I'm constantly surprised how RPG developers consistently fail to hit the happy medium between sandbox game and critical path force-feeding. Even BG2 got this wrong (but in a good way ). To be fair, MotB was a lot better (I've still not picked up SoZ). It's not difficult: point me in the right direction but give me stuff to do inbetween if I like. Balance it so that I don't hit 30th level prior to getting back onto the critical path. I'm hoping DA gets this right, but let's be frank, Bio loves to spoon-feed and Bio fans appear to love being spoon-fed. Cheers MC

Had a bit of a sinking feeling looking at the official DA website. The Jedi Grey Wardens (etc) are just so... meh. Then again, as per the earlier conversation, BG1 had the lamest plot and bad guys imaginable and was still a great game. So I cheered up a bit. Then I read that gushing "I took the game home for Xmas" stuff from a Bio person. And I had a sinking feeling again. I know, waiting for DA is a real rollercoaster ride, the top-down Touchmaster labyrinth game on my DS Lite will have to do for now. Cheers MC

Surely that should be ballast?

Wow, so they've actually gone and used SPECIAL to make what looks to me like a Command & Conquer FPS.

Actually, I'm finding the game quite hard. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but the scarcity of ammo and resources (although probably agreeably hardcore for many) is getting tiresome. Also, the lockpicking mini-game? What is that all about? Personally, I'm waiting for Fallout 3: Tactics. I've stopped playing until a decent patch comes out, the instability is a pain. In the final analysis, though, I just can't enjoy first-person perspective games as much as ones with a 'top down' view. Cheers MC

Alternatively, you could make a really good game in the first place that ships with an editor and watch the community create content. This fuels interest in further titles in the franchise. I'd personally never subscribe to premium content as you describe it. It should ship with the original product. As for TOEE, hey I loved the old-skool combat but the rest of the game was poor, with the disdain for customer opinion that has made Troika the thriving production house it is today. I know the odd Troika defender will blame Atari, but yadda yadda. Cheers MC

Is this likely to be comprehensively patched anytime soon? I'm picking it up in a week or so. Cheers MC